Unsuspected Victim
by Xayhra
Summary: This is another one of my English papers. When twenty-seven year old Autumn Ramos is murdered, three homicide detectives have to find out who did it. But, when they do, the only question they will have is who the murderer works for. T for violence. ORIGINAL STORY.


**So, this is another of my English papers. . . . Sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes. I'll continue this if enough people read it. . . . I hope you like it! Please review!**

Detective John Emerson entered the police office. He glanced over at his boss, Cassius Ridge. "We got a new case?" Last night, John and his two colleagues, Amanda Harris and Archer Kenton, had tracked down and arrested a man suspected of killing his wife in an argument. Amanda, John, and Archer were homicide detectives.

Mr. Ridge nodded. "A woman named Autumn Ramos. She was killed in an alley around three this morning. We found her about twenty minutes ago." He handed John a case file. "Review this then go to the address listed. Amanda and Archer are already at the scene. You're late again."

John let this comment slide and took the file. He went to his desk, sat down, and flipped the file open. He sorted through her criminal record. Drunk driving, parking tickets, and minor theft from ten years ago. Autumn was a twenty-seven year old Caucasian woman with red hair and green eyes. She had worked as a fashion designer for the past five years. She was raised by her grandmother in Queens after her mother died in childbirth. No mention of a father.

He turned to the report on the actual crime. Gunshot wounds to the head and back, various cuts and bruises, broken arm, and a stab wound that had punctured one of her kidneys. It looked like she was killed in cold blood. All he had to figure out was who did it.

He closed the case file and stood up. Time to go. He hurried outside to his nondescript tan car and got in. Ten minutes later, he arrived at the scene.

He studied the crowd of detectives and other police personnel before finally spotting a tall, tattooed man in a black suit with the sleeves rolled up and a blond petite woman. He wove his way through the crowd and stopped in front of Archer and Amanda. "Did they find anything new?" he asked.

Archer shook his head sadly. "No 'hello', John?"

John sighed. "Good morning, Archer. How are you today?" he asked sarcastically. He was always grumpy when he hadn't had breakfast.

Archer grinned. "Peachy."

Amanda rolled her eyes. "If you two would kindly end your amazingly important conversation, we could get on with business."

"That's what I was trying to do!" John exclaimed. "Now, has anything new come up?"

Before either could answer, an officer ran up to them. "Detectives, we believe we have found a knife used in the murder."

They followed him to where another officer stood, examining a knife carefully. He glanced up. "I'm going to have them run a DNA test on this and, hopefully, we will find our killer."

They nodded. "Anything else we can do here, Officer?" Amanda asked.

He shook his head. "No. Well, look at the security cameras on this block. Suspicious cars, strange behavior, you know the drill."

They nodded again. "We'll get right on it." John replied.

They walked toward their cars, making plans to meet up at the office in an hour. All John had to do was call Cassius and ask for the security cameras for this block from last night. That would only take a few minutes then he could get something to eat.

He got in his car and started to drive to the nearest restaurant. He dialed his boss' phone number. Cassius answered almost immediately. "Waiting for a call, Cassius?" he asked, smirking.

"As a matter of fact, yes. I wanted to gloat to my ex-wife that I'm actually on time for a payment."

"Really? We should throw a party."

"You'll do anything for free food, huh? Well, what did you call for?"

"We need the surveillance of the block that Ms. Ramos was killed on from last night."

John had the feeling that his boss was raising an eyebrow at him skeptically. "Last time I checked, the bosses made the employees do the work. . . ."

"But I am doing work."

"Enjoying those pancakes, John?"

"Very."

His boss sighed. "Fine, but you owe me."

"Of course, boss." John ended the call. How had Cassius known he was eating pancakes? Then again, he reflected, he had told Cassius a number of times that he loved pancakes.

He finished up and hurried back to the office. Amanda and Archer were already there. Archer shook his head. "You just like being late, don't you?"

"No, he was too busy enjoying a heaping platter of pancakes," Cassius said drily. "Anyway, I got those tapes for you. They're in the back room."

They walked into the small room and proceeded to play the tapes. Nothing seemed to happen for a while then John noticed something. "Wait a second!"

Amanda hit the pause button. John pointed. "Look at that bag he's carrying."

The other two looked closer. "Looks like there are guns in that duffel bag," Archer mused.

"Exactly. Hit play again, Amanda." Amanda hit the button, and they watched as the slightly blurry man carried the awkward bag into the alley, disappearing from view. They then noticed Autumn round the corner and cover her mouth with her hand as she presumably saw someone's murder. Their guess was confirmed when they heard several gunshots a few seconds later. They saw the lid of a dumpster flip open, and something the shape of a body tossed inside. The man seemed to take notice of Autumn then and pulled out a gun and shot at her. She screamed and ducked, the bullet grazing the top of her head. He then ran toward her and pulled her into the alley. They heard screams emanate from the alley before Amanda shut it off.

John ran his hand through his graying black hair. "We've got to let them know about this. This is more than just a brutal murder. That man was hired to kill someone, but Autumn saw the crime so he had to kill her."

The other two nodded, and Archer called the police officer in charge of investigating the crime scene. He had a short conversation then hung up. "We have to get over there," he said.

When they got to the crime scene, several detectives and police officers were pulling a mutilated body out of a dumpster. Amanda cringed. "I wonder why he was killed."

The officer in charge, a man named Lionel Carter, hurried up to them. "You know anything 'bout this guy?" he asked in a gruff voice.

Archer shook his head. "Not really. He was killed a couple minutes before Autumn."

"Can you tell anything about the man who killed them?"

"We've got people working on it right now. Excuse us." Amanda, Archer, and John hurried over to where the body had been laid out on the asphalt.

John moved over to the woman in charge of this aspect of examining the crime scene. "You got anything?"

She shrugged. "Male, several bullets to the head, but that's the obvious stuff. We haven't looked all too thoroughly yet." She handed them each a pair of gloves. "Take a look if you want, detectives."

They moved over to the body, and John carefully examined the body. It was a brown haired man with several shots to the head and one in his right thigh. There were quite a few scratches on his arms and legs that might have been from running away from his murderer rather than from the murderer himself. An old scar ran from his right eyebrow to the bottom of his right ear.

He glanced up at the police woman. "Can you have someone do a scan for a six foot or so male with brown hair and a scar like this on his face?" John pointed to the aforementioned scar.

She nodded and repeated the order to someone through a com link.

John's phone rang. He quickly answered it. "Hello?"

"Hi, detective," the voice on the other end said. "We got a closer look at that man on the surveillance tapes. Sending it to you now."

John glanced at his phone. A picture of a Russian man named Boris Dolinski presented itself on the screen. "Do you think he is part of the Russian mafia?"

"No, he was probably hired. He has been suspected of committing several more murders, but he has never been convicted."

"Hmm, do you know anything more about him?"

"No family. He used to live in Moscow but immigrated here ten years ago, presumably when he began working as a hit man. He's a pretty bad one though. He should've avoided those cameras."

John grinned. "And if he's a hit man, he has probably done jobs for the mafia. And a Russian hit man would probably work for which mafia?"

"The Russian mafia."

"Exactly! All we have to do is find the leader of the Russian Mafia."

• • •

"Finally!" Amanda shouted. "I found it!" Amanda, Cassius, John, and Archer had spent the better part of the last two hours trying to find out the name of the leader of the Russian mafia. They had interrogated people, looked in old databases, tracked down former mafia members, and had finally found a website, well hacked it really, of all the mafia's news.

Cassius leaned back in his chair. "Who?"

"Drago Arona. He became the leader five months ago after killing the former leader."

"He sounds nice," Archer muttered.

John shrugged. "Be that as it may, we have our man."

At that moment, another detective poked her head inside. "Do you still need those DNA test results?" she asked.

John was about to say no but thought better of it. "Yeah." It never hurt to be sure. She handed him a file and left.

He flipped it open and sorted through the papers. He glanced up at his colleagues. "Drago Arona didn't hire Mr. Dolinski."

Cassius frowned at him. "Why do you say that?"

"Because last night Boris killed Drago Arona."


End file.
